The screenwriter, who worked on 'Mad Max' and wrote 'Payback' for the Hollywood star, has defended his friend who famously fell from grace in 2006 when he went on a foul-mouthed diatribe after being stopped for drink-driving by a police officer.

Terry told The Times newspaper: ''We all have to take responsibility for what we say and do. All I can say is, in over 30 years of knowing Mel, I've never heard him say anything anti-Semitic. But the human organism is not adapted to celebrity...''

Terry's first ever novel 'I Am Pilgrim' has just been purchased for a movie adaptation my MGM and he hopes to follow in the footsteps of 'Harry Potter' author J.K. Rowling, whose novels have turned into a worldwide conglomerate including a theme park and a successful website, Pottermore.

He explained: ''I have nothing but praise for J.K. Rowling. Her contribution - apart from the books themselves, obviously - is showing writers how to interact with the 21st Century. When her website launched and she got flak, as if writers shouldn't have a commercial bone in their bodies, I took my hat off to her. things like Pottermore and the theme park feed back into the novels so that a whole new generation will read them.''